Number one on my favorite Christmas movie list is It’s A Wonderful Life, which I have to watch for Christmas to happen. Several other films crowd the list for the second spot behind that classic starring Jimmy Stewart. One very much in contention is Home Alone, the movie in which Kevin McAlister gets left at home by his family, while they travel to France. As Lauren Salerno pointed out in her Lenten meditation last week, this story carries some similarities to when Jesus was left at the Temple by his parents. I was never left alone anywhere by my parents for any significant length of time—at least to my knowledge, maybe I blocked it out. Still Home Alone, Jesus’ being left at the Temple, and today’s Old Testament reading from Isaiah all bring me to feeling the pain of being left or lost.
Perhaps it is not a vacation without you, or Mary and Joseph neglecting Jesus, or a nursing mother forgetting her child, but I bet all of us have felt the sting of abandonment. Your best friend not calling on your birthday, a spouse forgetting your anniversary, or even feeling as though your number will never be called at the DMV, these are just a few of the multitude of examples that could very well leave you feeling abandoned. When I think of moments like these from my own life I cannot help but feel a great pain in my heart—in particular a couple of moments can still cause a saline substance to well up in my eyes.
During those times I recall looking up to the skies as though I were expecting to make out God’s face in the clouds or writ large in the starry night sky. I wondered where the Almighty was hiding. Why wouldn’t he show up, so that I could scream at Him face-to-face? Crying and screaming at God I felt acrimony, heartbreak, and fury all wrapped together. I shouted to the heavens, “How could it be in a moment of such pain that you abandoned me? How can a loving God leave me alone to suffer? Where are you when such pain washes over me that I think that I will surely drown?” It did not matter that many of my wounds were self-inflicted or revolved around illogical choices I had a hand in making, what mattered was that I felt abandoned.
After I exhausted my supply of tears, once I had worn myself out with screaming upward, at the end of my yelling in the strange quiet that followed, I found myself somewhere new. I discovered a pasture on the bare heights—maybe it was not immediately, but in the aftermath I would happen upon it. I learned that even in my anger God had not struck me down with a scorched wind. In those bitter moments I saw that God had not left me. Instead, God stood with me silently, patiently waiting, while I grieved the most intense losses of my life God was the invisible shoulder on which I wept. As Isaiah put it, “The Lord has comforted his people, and will have compassion on his suffering ones.”
During this season of Lent we call to mind the intense pain that Jesus experienced in trials, temptations, and torture. Our Incarnate God was intimately familiar with grief and trouble. There were times when even he felt alone and abandoned—in the garden and on the cross. While it might bring us some solace that Jesus knows what we experienced, what is more fitting for me to remember is that as God experienced the pain of humanity even those moments of isolation were made holy.
As we journey towards the horizon of Holy Week, and as we experience moments of pain in our own lives, when it feels as though we are completely alone, may we remember that our God stands united with us always. Whether we feel God’s presence or not, God always stands with us, weeps with us, is with us. Though we may want to say, “The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me,” God not only knows us, but through Christ God goes with us through times of suffering. God shall make the mountain paths walk-able, give us food for the wilderness, and lead us by springs of water, for he never forgets us even if all else abandon us, to God we are not to be forgotten.
No comments:
Post a Comment